U.K.-based Kontainers is releasing a new version of its freight booking software platform aimed at the small and mid-size enterprise market and priced per transaction.
The software-as-a-service company said Kontainers Essentials, the third iteration of its ecommerce platform, enables smaller freight forwarders “to immediately compete with new digital first market forwarding entrants.”
The five-year old start-up is providing the front-end freight booking platform for Maersk and Toll Global Forwarding. But Chief Executive Officer Graham Parker said there is a pool of nearly one million freight brands that could benefit from an online offering for quotes and capacity.
“We are thrilled to make this significant addition to our suite of software products to serve every size of freight brand from global to 2 person operations.
“We believe this product will move the needle further in freight technology and freight brands will quickly use their new API (application programming interface) driven solutions to plug-in brand-new revenue streams that were never before possible,” Parker said.
Providing online access to quotes and booking for freight is part of the broader trend of increased visibility into shipping costs, Parker said at FreightWaves’ Transparency 19 conference in Atlanta, adding that there’s “a natural culling of freight forwarders that are not adopting technology.”
The market for transportation management systems (TMS) is expected to reach $30 billion by 2025, according to one estimate.
Kontainers plans to charge Essentials customers $10 per full container load and a sliding scale on less-than-container load.
The first Essentials customers are expected to go live September 30, 2019.